IRAQ7-C-15APR03-MT-MAC A horse drawn carraige merges into traffic from a sidestreet. The streets of downtown Baghdad are being to show signs of life returning. by Michael Macor/The Chronicle

IRAQ7-C-15APR03-MT-MAC A horse drawn carraige merges into traffic from a sidestreet. The streets of downtown Baghdad are being to show signs of life returning. by Michael Macor/The Chronicle

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IRAQ2-C-15APR03-MT-MAC Restaurants are getting along as best as the they can, with electricity still out, they turn to propane gas to cook morning breakfast of eggs, with tables set up on the front sidewalk. The streets of downtown Baghdad are being to show signs of life returning. by Michael Macor/The Chronicle less

IRAQ2-C-15APR03-MT-MAC Restaurants are getting along as best as the they can, with electricity still out, they turn to propane gas to cook morning breakfast of eggs, with tables set up on the front sidewalk. ... more

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IRAQ5-C-15APR03-MT-MAC Kids find an open space of concrete roadway to play a soccer game..The streets of downtown Baghdad are being to show signs of life returning. by Michael Macor/The Chronicle

IRAQ5-C-15APR03-MT-MAC Kids find an open space of concrete roadway to play a soccer game..The streets of downtown Baghdad are being to show signs of life returning. by Michael Macor/The Chronicle

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Baghdad beginning to get back to normal / Shops reopening -- GIs recover $3.6 million from bank robbers

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2003-04-16 04:00:00 PDT Baghdad -- After weeks of death and destruction, the first signs of renewal have begun to appear in Iraq's capital city.

Over the past couple of days, there were more people on the street and more cars in the boulevards. Impromptu shops opened on sidewalks. Men sold tea on the corner and cigarettes from tabletops.

Buses appeared, huffing and smoking and packed with passengers.

It's a marked difference from the city in the days immediately following the fall of Baghdad. Very few people ventured out for fear of getting caught in the cross fire between U.S. troops and Iraqi forces. There were almost no stores open and little vehicle traffic.

On Monday, a few stores opened, although almost no one has water or electricity. On Tuesday, the number of stores open on the main thoroughfares tripled or quadrupled.

Men sat on front steps drinking tea, or making food. A bookstore opened, as did a shoe store. Kids sold soda pop, candy and cigarettes from small crates on the sidewalks.

There are still a lot of mixed emotions about the war and the U.S. troops here.

An older man, perhaps 65, drank tea from a vendor and said Americans have slaughtered thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Why does the United States hate the Iraqi people?" he asked. "The United States is murderer of the world. I pray to God to be peace, all over the world and freedom and no more war."

But another man stopped a reporter to say he and other Iraqis were grateful that the Americans toppled a hated leader, Saddam Hussein.

"Saddam is dirty man and should be punished," said Nabil Mohammed. "Deal with him as a war criminal and put him in jail. But this must be shown on TV so people can see it."

Mohammed said President Bush is to be praised for liberating the Iraqi people, but should be mindful that the country not be occupied. He said U.S. troops should stay no longer than a year.

Meanwhile, Iraqis everywhere are begging for water, electricity and security. The city is still without most services, including sanitation. Garbage is strewn everywhere, and the sound of gunshots is nearly constant.

"We cannot have security without electricity," one man said. "Please, tell the people we must have water, we must have electricity. This is vital for us."

A Marine patrol foiled a bank robbery in Baghdad on Tuesday morning and recovered more than $3.6 million in U.S. cash.

First Lt. Frank Dillbeck, 28, of McCormick, S.C., said local Iraqis had told Marines that a group of men had been looting Iraqi banks in the neighborhood.

He said a patrol found the bank, the Al Rafadin, and saw a black SUV leaving the area. The place was too crowded to chase or shoot at the SUV, he said, so the Marines went into the bank to check it out.

Inside, they found that someone had used a jackhammer to cut a hole in the floor and make entry to one of several vaults. While the Marines were there, four or five men showed up and the Marines detained them. They found $50,000 in U.S. cash on them.

The bank manager told the Marines that there was at least another $1 million in the bank. The Marines left and then returned early Tuesday morning.

When they arrived, Dillbeck said, they found an ice cream truck and a bus parked by the bank, and about 11 heavily armed men. The Iraqis shot at the Marines, who returned fire, killing one and wounding four. Two got away and the others were detained, Dillbeck said.

Inside the bus, they found two burlap bags filled with U.S. cash. It was counted at $3.68 million and some Iraqi dinars.

"Apparently, these guys had been going around looting banks," Dillbeck said.

"They had a huge amount of cash, certainly more than I had ever seen before."

The cash and the Iraqis were turned over to the Marine regimental headquarters.

Another Marine from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, died Monday night.

The incident was still under investigation Tuesday, but the battalion commander, Lt. Col. B.P. McCoy, said one Marine apparently was shot accidentally by another.

The identity of the Marine was withheld pending notification of his family.

McCoy said the Marine was on patrol in the neighborhood near where the battalion is quartered. He could only say that one Marine misidentified the other and shot him.

He was the sixth member of this 1,100-man outfit to die during the war in Iraq. One was killed in a humvee accident, one was shot by an Iraqi while guarding a hospital in Baghdad, and three died in combat.